Former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic was removed from the UN war crimes court at The Hague on Monday after refusing to enter a plea and disrupting the judge's attempts to read out the charges against him.

Presiding judge Alphons Orie warned Mladic several times on Monday not to interrupt him as the defendant argued he should be allowed to choose his own lawyers.

"No, no, I'm not going to listen to this without my lawyer," Mladic shouted as he removed his translation headphones when the judge began reading out the charges.

Shortly before guards escorted Mladic from court, he shouted at Orie: "You want to impose my defence. What kind of a court are you?"

After a brief break, Orie resumed the hearing and began reading out the charges against Mladic.

The tribunal judges entered not guilty pleas to 11 charges on Mladic's behalf, which include genocide and relate to the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo and the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica.